Monday, August 27, 2012

AMSTERDAM Part 3

The Dutch are known for their dairy products and their cheese is no exception.

I seriously wanted to take home ALL of the cheese in this store!!! SOO NOMS!

They had all different types of cheese but I believe a Dutch speciality is Gouda and their Gouda was BOMB!!! They also sold various types of sweet mustard and chutney's to go along with the cheese and they were so delicious together!!

See the green cellophane wrapped cheese??

The cheese itself is actually that SAME green shade and it's infused with pesto it was CRAZY delicious!

Do you see it?? It's the 2nd from the right!

After that we decided to do a boat cruise through all of Amsterdam's famous canals! I would definitely recommend doing this if you visit Amsterdam it's definitely a very different vantage point of the city from when you're standing on the street. But I would recommend doing the day time ones and not the "romantical" night time one that we did.. because after awhile you can't see anything BAHAHAHA!!!

This was so pretty you actually could see straight through 7 different canal bridges :)!! But was too hard to capture on camera hahah.. it only looks like there are like 3 or 4 but I promise it 7 hahah!

After the boat ride we decided it would be perfect time to visit the infamous Red Light District. This was the VERY beginning of the red light district and I didn't take any pictures after this because we had heard many scary stories of not just the police confiscating your camera but of the girl's pimp's coming up to you..... so yeah don't take pictures when you're in the red light district hahah!!

But I can tell you it was a really interesting and somewhat bizarre experience it's literally rows and rows of girls in scantily clad lingerie and bikini's sitting in these giant window boxes! It's very very rowdy there's lots of dudes obviously but there are also a lot of couples, and groups girls there for their bachlorette parties and even some parents with their kids.. which I thought was kind of odd but to each their own.

After we finished wandering the red light district it was well passed midnight and we decided to take a ride on one of the many taxi bike's that are littered throughout the city. They are pretty much like tuk tuk's but these are on bike's and I think they are electrical because it goes SOOOOOOOOOOO fast!!! I had no idea the ride would be so fast you literally go flying through the streets!

It was SOOOOOOOOOOO SO fun and I really wish we had thought to do this in the daytime because they literally zip you through all the tiny canal streets!

Muhahahaha!!!

You can tell the Hubs is pretty tired at this point haha.

Chinatown!

This is supposedly the BEST Cantonese Chinese restaurant in all of Amsterdam. What was really surprising to us is when we got there we realized there were Vietnamese words on the window!!!

Birds nest noodles w/ pork and shrimp

Sweet and Sour Pork

I know I know I have SUPERRRRRRRRR American taste buds HAHAHAHA.. but their sweet and sour pork was actually really yummy heh.

(*@&$(*@#&$(*#& SOOOOOOOO FREAKIN' CUTE HAHAHAHA

OK this is TOTALLY RANDOM but this is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE RAMEN IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!!!!!

This brand Mama they make a whole bunch of different types of ramen flavors including different Tom Yum flavors.. but this particular one is CREAMY Tom Yum and it is obscenely disgustingly good. If you can find this at your local asian store you should definitely try it!! Crack two eggs and throw in some Napa cabbage and it's on!!!! Make sure your eggs are runny! Because the runny egg yolk mixed with the creamy tom yum soup is AWESOME.

I also happened upon these ADORABLE Japanese doll statues. The brand is called "Kimmidoll" and they make these Japanese dolls in like dozens upon dozens of different colors and styles SOOO CUTE! I really realllllllllllllly wanted to take one home (the pink on in the middle) for my dressing room but I thought the price was crazy ridiculous it was like $75 EURO's which is like $100 US!!! So when I went home I looked it up and turns out the dolls you see on the left side are the maxi size but they have one that's EVEN BIGGER that literally stands as high as your waist!!! And the EVEN BIGGER one is only listed as $100 US!!! WTF!!!! That place in Chinatown was a total rip off.. but I'm kind of bummed now because apparently these dolls are produced by an Australian company and you can't order them online and they don't ship ARGH!!! ::SADNESS::

She's so pretty

::CRIES::

Look at her pretty matte pink lips :p

More crooked houses!!

Look at the green doors and then look at the black gate on the right!

ROBOT STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I freakin' love Robot stores!

I thought the furry grass looking pink one with the purple ladybug on it was so cute!

DIEEEE FOR THIS PILLOW!!!!

But @ $50 EURO's = $75 USD.. I couldn't justify.. especially because I know if my fur babies ever get their hands on it.. it's going to be a ripped up chew toy in 10 seconds flat! hahaha.

This one was so pretty too!!

Public Enemy dolls!

FLAVAAAA FLAV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know you watched his VH1 show. Don't deny. ahahahahaha.

I'm oddly drawn to these freakish doll drawling by Mark Ryden.. I want some of his coffee table books so bad!!

*DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL*

Hahaha does anyone else think it's weird that there's like all these delicious desserts and then random giant pizza pies on the bottom? The weirdest part was that EVERY single bakery we ran across was set up like this.. desserts and then trays of pizza!!! Weirdness right? hahaha

Yummy gooey chocolate custardy eclair goodness!

OMG. This was the best thing I had on our entire trip!!!!! I was actually really worried that the Belgium waffle part would be tasteless, cardboard tasting and mushy but it was actually crispy and light and dense and delicious all at the same time. I have nooooo freakin' idea how they did it. But it was AMAZEBALLS!!

Honestly I would have been happy with just a plain Belgium waffle from this place.. but the chocolate, whip cream and strawberries were like the cherry on top it was SOOO GOOD!!! The Hubs was actually fighting me for this even though he got himself the chocolate eclair hahahhaha.

Haha Napoleon wouldn't leave the boba shop hahahahahaha

Some of the goodies from the Chinatown grocery store.. The Tako chips are delicious! I loveeee everything from the Nong Shim brand like their onion chips they're so good!

The Hub's haul from our trip. Hahaha and yes he went home with the Flava Flav doll.. he says he's on a mission to collect all of them.. he's looking for the P. Diddy one now.. HAHA.

The bullet shaped thing is actually vodka!! They had this cool alcohol shop that sold all sorts of alcohol in all sorts of crazy shapes even a full life sized rifle!

The Anne Frank huis is a poster of a birds eye view of the city overlooking the Anne Frank house.

My haul from our trip! I discovered this store called Bershka which turns out under the same parent company that owns Zara.. a lot of the store is very very similar to Zara styling but for a more affordable price and the quality isn't AS good as Zara's. But the prices are unbelievable.

I've been looking for more of a throw around bag for when I'm just running errands and don't feel like using my Chanel's (because I tend to beat them up when I use them on a regular basis) and I had actually contemplated getting an Alexander Wang studded bowler bag but they are SOOO SO heavy!! And I have a bad back :( And I tend to overfill my bags as is.. so I just haven't been able to take the plunge with getting an A. Wang studded bag.

But I loveeee this bag!!! It has the tough edginess of the A. Wang bags I love without the weight because the studs are made with very thin metal scraps and without the expensive price tag either. This bag was $30 Euro's!! WOOT!!

They have locations all over the world but I don't think they have them in the US yet! I tried going onto the Bershka website to look up locations but it seems to be broken :(

I loveeeeee these reusable shopping bags. These are from Blue Q and I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEE THEM!!! I picked up a few last year and the designs are so cute and I've used them a lot for groceries and stuff and they're pretty durable.

This is the other side of the bag.. it has two pockets on the outside of the bag - one big and one small you could definitely throw your cell phone in their if you wanted to.

omg!!!! i just blogged about the mama tom yum noodles!!!! it was on sale for $0.59 in the super market so I bought a bunch. I tried the creamy one but didnt love it as much as the original shrimp tom yum. i usually have it with a runny egg and a dash of fish sauce. so bommmb. sometimes if i feel like being fancy.. hahah. i add bean sprouts, basil leaves and toss in a few shrimp. yummmmm but the sodium content is sooo high that i only allow myself to eat it once in away. im also trying to lose weight!!!

I really love the graffiti walls and they look nice for outfit shots. Love those Kimmi dolls as well but too expensive. Did you get to meet bloggers while you were in Amsterdam? Love the food photos too.

Those artists are so talented! haha I hate it when people draw on the buildings with super lame/not pretty letters. What!? that is a cheese store? first glance, i thought they were selling decorations for the house. lol

ohhh i love Kimmidolls!! they're so super adorable but hard to find here in Montreal. :( the bookstores here only sell the keychains and mini statues, i've never seen a big one like in your picture!!

for a long long while, i've also considered the Rocco mini duffle bag from Wang. i tried it in store and uhhhh....WTF they weigh like a million TON. even with just paper stuffing in there. so a def no with that bag. good thing you're not getting it. this tote you bought looks like it will fulfill it's duty of a errands bag, and not to mention, looks super cool too!!

Gotta say that we Asians are very original in terms of being foodists in the blood. This reminds me too much of myself when I was in Paris and acting all psyched over finding Chinese food. OMG I LOVE FOOD!

I know Amsterdam is just a hop from London but I've yet to visit the place. One day.... You looked like you and the hubs had a great time. I can't believe you went to the Chinatown!!! I guess you must've been really deprived of Asian food. Did you get to try Indonesian cuisine? Holland is rather famous for it. I've seen these Kimmidolls in London and other places. You can order them here http://www.mykimmidoll.co.uk/ and they ship overseas too.

Thanks for doing these Amsterdam posts. So many bloggers (and non-blogger friends) have been raving about Amsterdam and what an ecclectic city it is. Me and my sis are planning a trip next year so I may come back to visit these posts for ideas :-)